SPbU’s athletes won match race against University of Otago

The team of St Petersburg University has won a traditional rowing match race the University of Otago, New Zealand.

The 2,000- and 250-metre races were held in Twizel, while a 5,000-metre race in the Pacific Ocean, near Dunedin. The athletes took part in the coxed eight. The SPbU’ team is:

Grigorii Shchulepov

Aleksandr Stradaev

Daniil Baranov

Aleksei Alekseev

Anton Sema

Pavel Baklagin

Nikota Melnikov

Kirill Goriachev

Cox: Elizaveta Valova

The University won all the races. In 250-metre sprint, our team toped out at 35 seconds leaving behind the University of Otago a 2,000-metre race in 6 minutes and 11 seconds (it made 4 seconds ahead of the rivals), and a 5,000-metre race at 16 minutes 12 seconds, 5 seconds ahead of the rivals.

The match race between SPbU and University of Otago has been held for five years so far, and two years in row the team of St Petersburg University has won by the total.

It is more demanding to compete in New Zealand, rather than in Russia, said Vasilii Smirnov, a coach of the rowing team of SPbU. Jet leg and rented equipment made it a little bit more difficult for our team to race, still the weather was permitting.

For a start, we won last year and this year we are winners once again, primarily due to our regular sessions and zest for victory. We have improved our performance comparing to how we performed in the match race last year.
Vasilii Smirnov, coach of SPbU’s rowing team

The rowing team of SPbU was formed in 2010 on the 150-anniversary of the rowing sport in Russia. Our team has won the European Championship among the students, Kingston Regatta (Great Britain), International Regatta “Gold Ores” (St Petersburg). Our team is a three-time finalist in the Henley Royal Regatta (Great Britain).